Upon his retirement as a non-routine flight operations captain from a fractional operator in 2015, Dr. Veillette had accumulated more than 20,000 hours of flight experience in 240 types of aircraft—including balloons, rotorcraft, sea plans, glides, war birds, supersonic jets and large commercial transports. He is an adjunct professor at Utah Valley University. In June 2023, he won the prestigious Bill Gunston Technology Writer of the Year Award.
Perhaps you remember the first time you lowered the canopy on the T-37 in the middle of that hot July sun in Columbus, Miss. Or preflighting a Piper Warrior on the Vero Beach ramp at high noon in August. Or maybe you were learning to hover in that “green house” canopy of a TH-55 at Fort Rucker, Ala., or an R-22 in mid-summer outside Sao Paulo — either way, your Nomex flight suit or cotton shirt was completely drenched in sweat. Back then we were young, eager and not about to show others that the heat was a bother.
I got a sick feeling as I watched the aircraft going round and round on CNN Headline News. It was April 30, 2004, and the video headline read: “Air Show Veteran Dies in Florida Spin Accident.” The footage followed the Sukhoi 31 all the way to its sickening end as it slammed into the ocean. Ian Groom, one of the most respected air show pilots in the world, had lost control of his aerobat while practicing for the Air and Sea Show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on his 58th birthday.
There are moments during every takeoff when an abnormality requires that the pilot make a split-second decision whether to continue or abort a takeoff. Unfortunately the safety margin grows razor thin, if non-existent, when a pilot decides to abort the takeoff nearly at V1 speed, especially on a weight-limited runway length. There are a plethora of reasons why the ``deck is stacked against the pilot'' trying to match the accelerate-stop data generated by the test pilots during certification.
